Unfinished Business
by Jezrianna2.0
Summary: Elisa Cameron wakes up in a restroom after an experience that will change her life forever.  Slightly AU.
1. An End and a Beginning

I wrote this for two reasons. First, to stretch my writing muscles by trying something different. I think an entire story in the first person present qualifies. :) Second, I'm suffering from writers block. Hopefully this little exercise will break said block.

Thunder echoes in my ears.

My eyes fly open.

Hard white light fills the room, washing out the colors. I see myself reflected in a mirror. I'm naked, and I don't remember why. My legs are weak. They start to tremble, and I prop myself up on the vanity in front of me. A quick look around shows tile and stainless steel, marble and porcelain. I'm in a restroom. But where? And how did I get here?

Muted sounds from...somewhere. My head is throbbing, my ears seem stuffed. But I can hear the buzz of the fluorescent lights. I shake my head, to try and clear it.

It doesn't work.

The sounds fade.

The lights go quiet.

I flinch as a deafening cacophony of noise assaults me. I press my ears closed with my thumbs and the volume drops enough for me to recognize that what I'm hearing is music. Too much bass. Each note is like a physical blow. Then, as quickly as it began, the assault wanes. The music doesn't go away, but it does fall off to a bearable level.

I still don't know what is going on, but I remember.

Club Desire. Arcadia's hottest new 'adult' nightspot. Where any and all pleasures of the flesh are for sale. I can't help but laugh. Sure, such things are technically illegal, but in Arcadia the syndicates mostly do as they please, thanks to their well tended stables of corrupt cops and bribed judges. The only time anything gets done is if there is overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing, and since the cops can't (or won't) look for it, it falls to the press to ferret out the truth. That's why I came here. I'm a reporter. Elisa Cameron, pleased to meet you. I came to Club Desire to see if the tip I got was true.

On the face of it, Club Desire is an ordinary dance club, owned by respectable and upright pillars of the community. But a little bird told me that they are just a front for Vincent Gasbini, Jr., the head of the Gasbini crime family. The same bird said Gasbini was at the club most nights. Being an ambitious girl, I decided to see if it was true.

It was. Gasbini was here. I spotted him not long after I arrived. I didn't stare at him, of course, but I kept an eye out. I danced. I had a few drinks. No, they weren't alcoholic.

Nature called.

I went to the bathroom.

And something happened.

I rub the back of my head. The headache is fading. Did someone slip me a Mickey? And then...rape me? Panic flares briefly, but fades. No. That's not it. Theft? I had a fair amount of money in my purse, but why take my clothes? Nothing makes sense. So what do I do now? Given the goings on in Club Desire, my nakedness probably won't draw much notice. I can call my sister, she can bring me some clothes, take me home. Resolved on my plan, I reach for the bathroom door.

My hand passes through the knob.

I blink. I shake my head. Nah. I just missed it, that's all. Still a bit woozy from whatever happened, that's it. I try again. I'm very deliberate.

My hand passes through the knob.

Panic returns. Ok, I'll be honest. I freak out. I slap my hands together. The clap is comfortingly loud. I try the knob again. Same result. It's then that I catch something out of the corner of my eye. A shape. A shadow. I spin around. I'm alone.

But I'm not.

The shadows rush in...

Thunder echoes in my ears.

My eyes fly open.

I'm back where I started, naked, staring at myself in the mirror, leaning on the vanity.

Leaning on the vanity. Even as I think about the strangeness of it, the thing turns as solid as smoke. I barely keep my balance. As I stare uncomprehendingly at the now insubstantial vanity, music starts up. The same as last time? Different? I can't tell. And frankly, I don't care. I just want to get out of here. I spend Lord knows how much time trying to grab the doorknob, trying to find whatever it was that let me touch the sink. Otherwise, how am I going to get out?

Yeah, I thought of that, eventually. Like they say, sometimes the answer is too obvious.

As I pass through the door the sound disappears. It doesn't fade, it's simply there one instant and gone the next. The club is full of people, of light, of motion, of frenetic activity. It's dead quiet. Like watching a silent movie. Then, as I watch, the people flicker like mirages and fade away. The light goes with it.

I can feel the shadows gathering.

I bolt for the door.

I don't make it.

Thunder echoes in my ears.

This time, I try to pay attention to my mental state as I'm leaning on the vanity.

It doesn't help.

I try a few times, but my heart isn't in it. I leave the bathroom. The club is different than it was last time. The people are translucent, the music muted. I don't linger. This time, I make it to the street.

Something is wrong with the world. The sun is overhead, the sky is clear, but it isn't bright. Instead, there is an odd kind of twilight, like the dimming you see during a partial eclipse of the sun. At the limits of my vision the twilight gives way to true darkness. What is going on?

Phantom pedestrians brush past me, walk through me, ignore me.

I start walking.

I don't know where I'm going. Not consciously anyway. I end up at the Times. Joe, the grandfatherly doorman who says hello to me with a smile, every morning since I started working here, ignores me. I reach out to touch him. He's as insubstantial as everyone else.

I'm confronted with the problem of how to get to the City Room. It's on the twenty-second floor, and I can't punch the elevator buttons. I'm seriously considering taking the stairs when two of my colleagues walk in the front door. I slip into the elevator with them, listen while they exchange small talk, follow them as they debark.

I pad silently through the neatly ordered cubicles. Mine isn't far off, but...

But...

I stop. Turn. Paul Miller is my friend and mentor. His cubicle is nearby. I almost feel drawn to it. The feeling is strange, unnerving.

Paul isn't there.

No surprise. Paul is a bit of a workaholic, usually chasing several stories at once. I smile, and look around. Paul's desk is cluttered with folders and notebooks and all the little bits of flotsam a veteran reporter picks up over the years. One in particular draws my eye.

It has my name on it.

As I reach for it a shiver runs down my spine and my skin crawls. Somehow my fingers find a purchase and the folder flops open. The first thing in it is a clipping, the upper half of the front page of the times. A picture of me takes up the left half of the page below the headline. To the right of it are three columns of text. It's the headline that gets me, though.

'TIMES REPORTER SLAIN'

I feel myself start to shake. I have a hard time focusing, but I manage to read the first lines of the story: 'Arcadia Times reporter Elisa Cameron was found dead in a women's restroom in the Club Desire late last night. Cameron, 29, had been shot execution style...'

This dream isn't funny anymore.

This dream.

This nightmare...

I want to wake up.

I feel it, and look up just before it happens.

The shadows rush in.

Thunder echoes in my ears.

I'm not going to wake up...

...am I?

**This story is based on the comic book 'Ghost' published (alas, no longer) by Dark Horse Comics.**  



	2. First Steps

Based on the comic book 'Ghost' published, alas no longer, by Dark Horse Comics.

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_Triaxx2: Not any more. It'll be ongoing, but updates will happen irregularly._

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_Thanks to: Ace Lannigan, gargoylesama and WWLAOS._

I finally accept my...condition. I'm not sure how long that takes - I find it very difficult to keep track of time.

Partly that's because there is no day or night for me now, just this miserable, unending twilight.

The main reason is that the time I'm 'out' after the shadows rush in seems to vary. Again, I'm not sure how much, and I haven't noticed a pattern yet, but so far it seems to vary from as little as a few minutes to as much as a couple of weeks.

Every time, though, I end up back in the women's restroom at Club Desire. In a way it makes sense. After all, it is where I...died. And being bound to the place were their lives ended is what ghosts do.

Ghosts. If I am a ghost, why do I seem to be the only one? I have yet to see anything or anyone that I'd say was a fellow departed soul. Shouldn't they be all over? I find myself wishing I would meet one, if only to get some pointers on what to do next.

That, and they'd take my mind off the things I see that are definitely _not_ people. Remember that I told you before how the twilight fades to true darkness at a certain distance? It's about a quarter of a mile, and seems to be centered on me, moving with me as I move. At least, the darkness never gets any closer to me.

For that, I am profoundly grateful. You see, there are _things_ in the dark. At the boundary between twilight and deep darkness I can occasionally catch a glimpse of them. What they are I can't even guess. Or rather, I don't want to guess. They are amorphous blobs of complete, utter blackness, darker even than the background, and I find them terrifying.

Fortunately they seem to be uncommon. I don't see them all the time, and only once have I seen more than one. Still, I keep an eye on the boundary.

Just in case.

How do I finally accept that I'm dead? That is a journey of three stages. First, I go home. Or rather, to my apartment. It isn't far from the Times, which I find convenient, not having a car and all. A nice little one bedroom place, with a good view of the city and only excruciatingly expensive, rent-wise. As I climb the stairs I take some comfort from the familiarity of the walls. But there is also a sense of apprehension, small but unshakable.

I pass through the door of my apartment...

...and find a man, a stranger, unpacking boxes and arranging furniture. My reporters eye notes details. Mid twenties, six feet, medium build, dark hair, blue eyes, moderately good looking. He whistles while he works. For some reason that annoys me.

"Who are you?" I demand.

Like everyone else I've met, he ignores me. I look around. All of my stuff is gone. Understandable in retrospect. After all, it wasn't like I had gone missing or anything, and the landlord had a business to run, but still.

I start to get angry.

"What have you done with my stuff?" The words come out, not in a yell, but more of a restrained shout. Again, he goes about his business oblivious to my presence. He takes a tray of silverware out of a box and heads to the kitchen. He starts pulling open drawers, hunting for the perfect place to put it, no doubt. He pauses, reaches into one of the drawers and pulls out a large spoon.

It's my Nana Spoon. It's nothing special to look at, just a cheap piece of flatware whose chrome coating has long since worn away, leaving it mostly a dingy yellow. But my maternal grandmother gave it to me as a housewarming gift, and as a child I had watched her stir cake and cookie mixes with it. Whenever the Nana Spoon came out, I knew goodies were on the way. It's very special to me, and...

...that bastard turns and tosses it in his garbage can without a second thought!

I lose it.

"THAT'S MINE!" I rage. "HOW DARE YOU THROW IT AWAY?"

Tears are pouring down my cheeks when something amazing happens.

He straightens up and turns around, a puzzled look on his face. My tears stop. I stare in shock and wonder as he looks and listens. Moving with a touch of wariness he checks that he is, in fact, alone, then relaxes, shrugs his shoulders and says to no one, "That was weird."

He heard me! He must have! But how? Was it because I yelled? Or because I was angry? Or maybe both?

I scream at the top of my lungs, my only motive volume.

Nothing.

Ok, we'll try anger. Back in college I spent a little time as a man hating feminist, before a friend pointed out that misandry was just as stupid and wrong as misogyny. I'd put that all behind me (hoping that it would be forgotten, as the whole episode was extremely embarrassing in hindsight) but calling on those memories allows me to create anger. Once you put yourself in the right frame of mind it doesn't take much to see rape imagery everywhere, even in the mundane act of him putting his silverware tray in my drawer. You get the idea.

Once I get the ball rolling I find other things to be angry at: having to walk around naked, not having control over my destiny any more, being unable to touch things. In no time at all I am in a towering, if somewhat artificial, rage.

"THIS IS MY APARTMENT YOU BASTARD! GET OUT!" I put all the passion I can into the words.

I don't know if he is on edge from before, or if the effect was more intense, but this time he turns around faster. Not a lot faster, but now he seems...more concerned, I guess. His eyes narrow, darting to and fro. His hand steals out, his fingers closing on the handle of a butcher knife. Stealthily, warily, he goes hunting. On his way out of the kitchen he walks right through me, unaware of the collision. I watch silently, letting my anger fade, as he checks every room, looks in every closet, behind every open door. Finally satisfied that he's alone, he gives the apartment one last glance, then resumes his unpacking.

I'm not sure what to do next. This guy hasn't done anything wrong, and there's nothing of mine here anymore. My stuff is probably back at my parents' house anyway. I'll go there next.

Turning to leave I remember the Nana Spoon. I can't go without at least trying. When I thought I'd lost it I was frantic, and looked everywhere. Ok, obviously not _everywhere_. And to be honest I feel a little stupid now for not looking at the back of the drawer, but...

In the kitchen I look down into the garbage can while my apartment replacement goes about his unpacking. The spoon is lying on top off everything else. Now if I can just...

My fingers pass through it, and I want to scream in frustration. I try again and again, without success. Finally despair overwhelms me, and I give up. Weeping, I look down at the treasured memento of my childhood. Gently I slide one hand through the garbage underneath it and reach down with the other. If I can't actually touch it, I can at least pretend too. My fingers brush through the air just above it.

"Goodbye, Nana Spoon," I say, my voice breaking. "I'm sorry." Then filled with sadness, I straighten up. The spoon comes with me.

I'm so shocked that I let out a surprised yelp and drop the spoon. It doesn't slide through my fingers. I let go of it. It lands on the floor with a clatter, startling the new occupant so much he almost drops the plates he's putting away.

While his eyes seek the source of the noise I back into a corner. Finally he notices the spoon, still wobbling on the floor. He picks it up, stares at it a bit, looks around, then carefully returns the spoon to the garbage.

Ever an optimist, I try again. After all, I did it once, even though I no idea how.

I reach down. My fingers pass through the spoon. Frustration tries for a comeback, but I suppress it. Instead, I think. I've touched three things since...it...happened. What was I doing when I touched them? After I while it hits me. I wasn't thinking about touching them. I just did it. But then, I also just did it when I tried for the doorknob in the restroom that first time, and that didn't work. And emotion was involved too. Leaning on the vanity, I was confused. Opening the folder at the Times, I was apprehensive. Just now with the spoon I was sad.

Strong emotion and an absence of desire? That makes no sense. But I seem to be stuck with it. Slowly I slid my hand beneath the spoon again. I close my eyes, and try not to want to pick the spoon up, while at the same time trying to recreate the sorrow I felt.

Somehow, it works. The joy that sweeps through me is overwhelming. I have some control over my world again. Not much, but it's a start. A start to what end, I don't know yet, but it's a start.

I hug the Nana Spoon to my breast, then kiss it I'm so happy. It's then that the new tenant goes to throw something away. He starts to toss the item in the garbage, hesitates, then bends forward with a disbelieving look on his face. His hand probes in the garbage.

"What the Hell?" he asks. "I just put it..."

"Don't worry," I say, "I'll take good care of it."

He almost jumps out of his skin. I do too, but manage to hold onto the spoon and not say anything else.

"Who said that?" he demands, his voice quavering.

I head for the door, my prize in hand. "Sorry," I call back, "I won't bother you again!"

His shouted, "Where are you?" is muted in mid sentence by me passing through the door into the hall. I head for the stairs, resolved to go to my parents' house.

What I find there extinguishes my happiness.


	3. Homecoming

I can tell right away that something is wrong. The front lawn is ragged looking. It hasn't gone to seed yet, but it is far longer than I've ever seen my father let it get. As I head up the walk I se not one but two copies of the Arcadia Shopper, a weekly ad magazine, lying on the front stoop. By the look of the plastic wrappers I guess the newest one has been there several days. Dad rarely lets more than five minutes pass between the sound of the paper hitting the stoop and him getting up to fetch it. A cold chill runs up my spine.

I glide through the front door, into the house I grew up in. The front room is the same as I remember it, with its family photos and Mom's curios and the stairs heading up to the second floor. To my right is the living room. Behind it, toward the back of the house, is the kitchen. To my left is the TV room, behind it the laundry room and Dad's home office.

The place is at once eerily quiet and unnervingly noisy. I glance into the TV room. My father is sitting in his favorite easy chair. There is a picture in lap. It's of me, the day I graduated from college. On the end table next to him is a half empty bottle of whiskey.

My Dad is an alcoholic. When my sister and I were young it was...bad. I grew up fearing and hating my father and his drunken rages. But he finally got help, and sobered up. It's been years since he had so much as a sip, and now...

Now he looks, not angry, but sad. Worn out. Frail. It breaks my heart to see him like this.

"Daddy," I whisper, my voice breaking, tears stinging my eyes. He doesn't hear me, of course, just reaches out and takes another hit from his bottle.

In the kitchen, my mother is baking. Cookies, bread, cake. She's humming to herself, a cheery little tune that matches the smile on her face. I don't understand her mood, until I spy the bottle of Prozac on the counter. Happy pills. She's hiding from her grief, just like Dad is.

I shouldn't blame them. After all, they've lost a child. But anger stabs through me non-the-less. Fortunately I channel most of it against the person who did this to them, whoever that might be. Still, the heat of my rage lifts me, like a bird in an updraft. I find myself on the second floor, just outside my sister's room.

Margo has gone Goth on me. She was always into the look, to the extent Mom and Dad let her indulge her tastes. Now, she's dressed all in black, with the lipstick and the eye shadow and the mail polish, the whole smash. Dark, morbid music is oozing from her stereo, and she's staring at something in one of her art books. I look over her shoulder. It's a painting from the middle ages, about the Black Death. Frightened people are being chased and killed by skeletal beings. Margo always said she hated that picture, because it was so bleak.

I turn and step through the wall into my own room. A little light is filtering in around the blinds, but otherwise the room is dark. Without thinking about it I draw the blinds. In the flood of sunlight I see were most of my stuff has gotten to. Boxes are piled everywhere, some labeled, some not. All that is left of my life, it seems, is in this one room.

I open a box at random. Books. Another. Dishes. I smile at that. There's no reason to keep those. My folks have plenty of their own, after all. But then I realize the truth. It's too soon. Too soon to throw or give away something that reminds them of me.

Another box. My notes. The big story I was working on when I was...killed. I take up the top folder and open it. The ugly face of Vinnie Gambini, Jr. leers up at me.

Gambini. Name a racket, and you can be sure Vinnie has a piece of it. Numbers, drugs, prostitution, the works. Of course, since the Gambini Family owns Arcadia's underworld, that's not much of surprise. I study the picture. Vinnie is, from what I've heard, ruthless and cunning. He went to the best schools, courtesy of his father's money, but was an indifferent student. He got his real education on the streets, working his way up through the organization, finally earning the top spot for himself.

Did he have me killed? It's possible, but I have my doubts. Sure, he might want me dead, but to have me whacked in his own club, while he was there? That doesn't sound like something a clever, cunning fellow would do. Unless he was feeling arrogant, feeling like rubbing the fact that he's all but untouchable in peoples faces.

I'm reading the file I put together on him when a thought occurs to me. I could touch him. I did manage to pick up my Nana spoon, after all. And I've opened boxes and folders. Heck, I even managed to lift...

The lights come on. I was so lost in thought I didn't even hear the door open. I spin around to find Margo standing there, staring.

At me.

"Elisa?"

She can SEE me?

I open my mouth to speak, and it happens.

The shadows rush in.

Thunder echoes in my ears.

My eyes fly open.

Dammit!


	4. The Dreadful Guide

I find myself, as usual, back in the Club Desire women's restroom. Shadowy figures move around me. They aren't the shadows I see at the edges of my field of vision, and I decide that they are people, going about their business. I wonder, briefly, why my perceptions of the living have changed so much. Perhaps it has implications for...whatever it that is going to happen to me. Or maybe it doesn't mean anything. I have no way of knowing, so I don't dwell on it.

I do dwell on the fact that I'm rather tired of strolling around stark naked, but I'm not sure what I can do about that. As I'm pondering the problem, the shadows around me become a bit more distinct. I can actually make out faces and figures. My eyes light on one of the strippers...er, _exotic dancers_, excuse me, just finishing her routine on one of the club's stages. I follow her into the dressing room set aside for them. A dozen girls in various stages of dress and undress are in the process of getting ready for their trip to the catwalk, but my attention is on the racks of clothes standing around the room. Any and every kind of costume you can imagine is represented, from cops to nurses to schoolmarms. I shake my head in amusement at men and their fantasies. Then I blush, remembering a few of my own fantasies, and decide not to pass judgment.

I search through the costumes, trying to make as little noise as possible. It's a waste of time. There are things in my size, but nothing that I like. And I observe that even if there was, everything is flimsy and designed for easy removal. Not qualities I look for in my clothes, at least not usually.

Besides, it's not as if anyone can see or hear me anyway. Even when I accidentally knock over a rack of costumes, the strippers don't see _me_, they just stare at the rack and its spilled contents, then pick it up and go about their business.

I barely notice them, because the falling rack has revealed something I can't take my eyes off of. Whether or not it is a strippers costume, or something else, I don't know for sure. I just know that the longer I look at it, the more I begin to think...something else.

It's a bodysuit, with boots and gloves and a bustier-style top. It also comes with a cloak and hood. The whole outfit is in white, an almost unearthly shade of white, and seems to call to me, drawing me in half-against my will. I begin to put the outfit on, and find that it fits perfectly, as if it were made for me alone. I also discover that what I had taken for a cloak and hood...is actually a shroud. As I draw it close around me I begin to feel an urge, a desire to travel in a particular direction. I don't know where or why, but I somehow sense that I'll find some answers there, wherever there is.

"Who the hell are you?"

The voice cuts across my thoughts like a whip. A woman's voice, containing equal measures of annoyance and snippiness. I turn, and for a moment see a girl barely out of her teens, clad in a skirt and bikini top, both garishly decorated with rhinestones, and ridiculous stiletto heels.

For a moment, because in the next instant she blanches, lets out a bloodcurdling scream, and backpedals frantically. All eyes in the dressing room (and I am suddenly aware of my company) turn to her.

"Tiffany, what's...?" one of her companions asks, or begins to, before 'Tiffany' cuts her off with a pointing finger and gasped, "No face! She doesn't have a face!"

Suddenly the urge to travel is stronger than ever. By accident or design, Tiffany is between me and where I want to go. With sudden insight I will myself forward, and I'm moving without walking, almost as if I'm flying.

Just before I pass through her on my way out of the room, Tiffany's eyes roll back in her head, and she faints. For some reason that pleases me greatly, even though I have nothing against her, and I didn't choose to let her see me. I just know, somehow, that what just happened was important.

Other important events are coming this day.

Outside, the unending twilight is the same, but instead of having to walk everywhere, I find I can move in any direction at will, unbound by gravity. Even as I enjoy my new-found freedom, I get the distinct impression that my ability to do so has less to do with newly discovered 'powers' than it does with a lack of old physical constraints.

I cross half of Arcadia before I spot my destination.

In retrospect, I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was, at least a little.

Oaklawn Cemetery. Final resting place of three generations of Cameron's. Four, I suppose, if you count me. In the family plot, where my grandparents and great grandparents and one uncle lie buried, there is a brand new granite tombstone:

_Elisa Cameron_

_beloved daughter_

_11 June 1977_

_9 September 2006_

I shudder at the sight of it, but I can't look away.

"I have to know," I whisper to no-one in particular, and allow myself to sink into the earth, where I discover I can see just as well as I can above ground. Presently, soil gives way to a concrete vault, then the polished wood of a fancy coffin, then silk-like padding and then...

...me. I stare at my own dead face, swollen now, as the process of decay has set in despite the embalming process. Eventually, suddenly, I tear myself away from the morbid sight and shoot back up to the surface.

Despite the fact that I no longer have a body, I feel sick to my stomach, and would gladly retch my guts out. I lean on my own grave marker, trembling.

"I'm dead," I say, softly. "I'm dead." I guess I hadn't really believed it until just now. I look around, at the trees swaying gently in a breeze I can't feel. I look up at the leaden sky.

"Well, God?" I call out. "What now? What am I supposed to do now?" As I say the last I begin to cry.

"He won't answer, but perhaps I can help."

I whirl to see a figure approaching. A woman with pale, almost alabaster skin; long, dark hair; and deep, dark eyes; clad in a black business suit. In her arms, cradled to her breast is what seems to be a laptop computer.

"Who are you?" I demand.

She pauses, not far away, and gives me a meaningful look. "I think you know, Elisa," she answers.

"Why are you here?" I ask. Oddly, I'm not afraid. I read no malice in my guest's face, but no favor, either. She seems...indifferent.

"To help you help yourself, Elisa," she answers, settling herself on a nearby monument. She flips her laptop open and begins to fiddle with it. "Most people," she continues, "have no trouble moving on when their time comes. You, on the other hand..." She gives me a wry smile as she says the last, and I nod in agreement.

"But why?" I ask, somewhat plaintively.

More messing with the laptop, some typing, more fiddling.

"Because, just before you died, you caught a glimpse of your killer in the mirror. That glimpse was enough to give you a reason to stick around."

I stare at her, my eyes thoughtful. I don't believe she's lying, even though I can't recall any such thing. But I also get the impression that there is a great deal she isn't telling me, either.

"What sort of a reason is that?" I inquire.

"Isn't it obvious?" she asks. "You're no mere phantasm, Elisa, stuck endlessly repeating your tragic end but powerless to do anything about it. You're a full fledged ghost, with power to affect the living, as you've begun to discover."

She pauses, letting that sink in, before finishing, "Find out who killed you, and why. Avenge your death. Only then can you go to what awaits you, Elisa."

"But how am I supposed to..?" My words echo in silence. She's gone, even more suddenly than she appeared.

"Great," I mutter, but in truth, I feel...excited. I have a purpose now, a reason for my present state. Find out who killed me, eh? I can do that. I was a reporter, after all, and a damned good one. I have notes, and I have a prime suspect, Vinnie Gasbini.

'That,' I think gleefully, 'and I can go anywhere, look at anything, and there's nothing anyone can do to stop me.'

Too bad I was wrong about that last bit.


End file.
